Thursday, July 19, 2012

How To: Sunset Nails Tutorial

Sunset Nails Tutorial

I really love how my sunset nails turned out, and I got a bunch of compliments on them, so I thought I would do a tutorial. These nails are really easy to do, and you can change up the colors and silhouettes however you want. To follow the design I did, you will need:

Base coat (Nail Tek III)

Pink/Magenta Polish (Essie Bachelorette Bash)

Orange Polish (Sinful Colors Big Daddy)

Yellow Polish (Ulta Sun-Sational)

Super-fine Glitter Polish (Sally Hansen Diamonds)

Black Polish and a small striping brush OR A black nail art pen

Top Coat (Seche Vite)

A Makeup Sponge

Foil

Step 1: Apply your base coat, and two coats of your pink polish

Step 2: After your pink polish is dry, use a piece of the makeup sponge to sponge on your orange polish. Only sponge on to 3/4 of your nail. The orange doesn't really show up too well, but it's more noticeable when you put on the yellow polish.

Step 3: Once the orange is dry, sponge your yellow polish onto just half of your nail. Start off light, and then sponge more on until you're happy with the color.

Step 4: Apply a very light coat of your glitter polish.

Step 5: Time to start adding your silhouettes. I personally prefer using a striping brush and black polish. Nail art pens have a tendency to explode all over my nail when I'm using them. Plus, if your polish isn't totally dry, they can drag and it doesn't look as smooth. However, they are much easier to control than a brush.

So, first you want to choose where you want to paint your palm trees, and paint the ground.

Then paint on the trunk of your palm tree. You want it to curve a bit

Add on the rest of your tree with short curved lines.

Add birds to the rest of your nails.

Step 6: Add your top coat, clean up excess polish with an angled brush and some acetone, and you're done!

Sorry the pictures aren't the greatest. The lighting in my apartment is terrible, and it was too hot to keep going outside for pictures! I hope you'll try out this design. Let me know how it works for you!